ETSU news and tidbits

#1

ice

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#1
Coach Randy Sanders seems to be doing well in his first year as head coach of the East Tennessee State Bucs. They are getting a playoff berth and ranked 17 and 19 in the Socon.
Pretty good for a first year coach. Good luck to Randy and the Bucs.
Five or six years ago this school did not have a football program. Carl Torbush of Knoxville Tn. was brought in to get the program up and running, "Phil Fulmer assisted". He retired and turned it over to Sanders.
Me, my wife, and Carl attended Knoxville Austin East at the same time.
After 40-50 years I ran into Carl at a Burger King in Piney Flats Tn. We talked a little. He had just retired from ETSU. He told me he and his wife were going to settle in Sevierville, Tn.
Best of luck to all the Knoxville guys.
 
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#2
#2
Coach Randy Sanders seems to be doing well in his first year as head coach of the East Tennessee State Bucs. They are getting a payoff berth and ranked 17 and 19 in the Socon.
What do you mean by the above (in bold)?
 
#8
#8
What do you mean by the above (in bold)?
They are ranked 17 and 19 in the polls. They have all but guaranteed a spot in the playoffs. If they win on Nov 17 they win the Socon
 
#9
#9
While I am excited to see this team perform, we actually aren't guaranteed a spot in the FCS playoffs yet. Right now the Bucs are 8-2, 6-1 in conference play, with one game left against SoCon member Samford left on the schedule.

Wofford, Samford, and Furman are in a 3 way tie for second place having each lost 2 SoCon games already. If ETSU beats Samford, they win the conference championship and get an automatic bid for the FCS playoffs. If they don't beat Samford, and assuming that neither Samford, Furman, or Wofford loose again, ETSU could tiefor 1st place with anywhere from 1 to 3 other teams, and probably sit at home. Samford I believe would have the tiebreaker with the other three schools.

Though considering the program is only 4 years old right now after being brought back, and sucked the last 3 years, and preseason polls predicted that they would end up 8th out of 9 teams in the Southern Conference(UNCG doesn't have football), I'm honestly surprised that they've done as good as they have so far.

The big thing to see going forward is going to be how well Randy Sanders does at recruiting players going into the offseason. Most of the players he's working with where brought on by Coach Torbush. There are plenty of coaches that can coach good, but that couldn't recruit good if their lives depended on it. Then there are coaches that can't actually coach worth a darn, but work the recruiting trail so good that they probably should have made a career in sales or marketing instead of football. We may get to find that out next year.
 
#10
#10
While I am excited to see this team perform, we actually aren't guaranteed a spot in the FCS playoffs yet. Right now the Bucs are 8-2, 6-1 in conference play, with one game left against SoCon member Samford left on the schedule.

Wofford, Samford, and Furman are in a 3 way tie for second place having each lost 2 SoCon games already. If ETSU beats Samford, they win the conference championship and get an automatic bid for the FCS playoffs. If they don't beat Samford, and assuming that neither Samford, Furman, or Wofford loose again, ETSU could tiefor 1st place with anywhere from 1 to 3 other teams, and probably sit at home. Samford I believe would have the tiebreaker with the other three schools.

Though considering the program is only 4 years old right now after being brought back, and sucked the last 3 years, and preseason polls predicted that they would end up 8th out of 9 teams in the Southern Conference(UNCG doesn't have football), I'm honestly surprised that they've done as good as they have so far.

The big thing to see going forward is going to be how well Randy Sanders does at recruiting players going into the offseason. Most of the players he's working with where brought on by Coach Torbush. There are plenty of coaches that can coach good, but that couldn't recruit good if their lives depended on it. Then there are coaches that can't actually coach worth a darn, but work the recruiting trail so good that they probably should have made a career in sales or marketing instead of football. We may get to find that out next year.

I agree with your sentiments. One should consider that Carl Torbush had to start from scratch. That means his first team was made up of high school seniors playing against schools that had college seniors. He had tough row to hoe. All things considered, he handed Sanders a pretty good team.
In all fairness to Torbush, he was brought in to get the program up and running. No one expected them to win a championship in the first two or three years.
Apparently he "Torbush", did a good job. Randy seems to be doing good with Torbush s recruits.
 
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